


Hostility and Control

by Coshledak



Series: get myself back home [10]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Brogane, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23229679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coshledak/pseuds/Coshledak
Summary: “Takashi Shirogane?”“Yes…?”“This is Principal Cane, at North Pike Middle School. How are you this afternoon?”
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: get myself back home [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/725445
Kudos: 28





	Hostility and Control

He’s sitting in his dorm waiting for his next class to roll around when his phone buzzes. The number seems vaguely familiar, but most of his contacts are in his phone under actual names. Deciding that it could be one of his parents calling from a different desk, he answers and balances the phone against his shoulder as he flips the page in his textbook, leaning back against the head of his bed.

“Hello?”

“Takashi Shirogane?”

“Yes…?”

“This is Principal Cane, at North Pike Middle School. How are you this afternoon?”

A sudden spike of tension shoots from his lower back to his neck as he sits up. “I’m fine, Mrs. Cane, how are you?”

“Unfortunately not well, Takashi,” she says, with the sort of familiarity she probably wouldn’t use with a parent. But she had Shiro while he was in middle school, too. “I’m having trouble getting ahold of your parents. Would you be able to come to the school?”

“What’s going on?” He asks, but he’s already swinging his legs over the side of the bed and ducking for his shoes. “Is Keith alright?”

“More or less,” she says. “He got into an altercation with an older boy in the hallway. The nurse looked at him and nothing’s broken, but he will be suspended for three days.”

Shiro lets out a breath. These days, any number of things can happen in a school. He supposes if it were half as bad as his imagination could come up with, then he probably wouldn’t just be getting a courteous call from the principal. He hates to think about ever seeing “North Pike” show up for some sort of emergency on the news while he’s in class or having lunch with Adam in the Student Union.

“But he’s okay?”

There’s a slightly disgruntled tone to her voice then. “Well, _yes_ …if you consider getting into fights with other students to be okay.”

He gets his shoes he rest of the way on and swipes his keys and his jacket. “I’m more concerned with my brother’s well-being right now, Mrs. Cane. Will it be alright for me to sign him out?”

“Your parents have you listed in his file, yes.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Drive safely, Takashi,” she says. He can still detect the faint irritation in her voice. “But please be mindful. I don’t care who comes to pick him up, but he can’t stay here.”

—

The words buzz in his head for the whole drive.

On the one hand, he knows that this is not Keith’s first offense. He’d been there when the social worker talked through his file with their parents. In simple terms, Keith’s a “behavioral problem.” Fights at his various schools. Fights in his foster homes. Abuse. Abandonment. Lashing out hard and withdrawing almost five times harder. Keith’s been with them for a year and the social worker has told them that he’s gotten into fewer fights in his time with them than most of his other homes.

But his record isn’t spotless in the Shirogane household either. His parents are patient, though they’re out of their depth, too. He knows, because he never got into a single fight throughout his years in school. Sure, he got picked on sometimes. Every class has bullies. But he never “stooped to their level,” as it was taught to him. Adam had thrown punches, sometimes, and Shiro had never considered Adam to be stooping to anyone’s level.

Shiro can’t accuse Keith of stooping to anyone’s level, either.

He pulls to the temporary parking in front of the school, the select few spots that are left open from where the front office staff parks, and walks to the front door, stretching his legs to get there quicker. He presses the buzzer and they let him in.

Keith is sitting in the front office with his head tilted up, holding a tissue to his nose. He lowers it to check just as Shiro walks in. His cheekbone has a bruise forming on it, but other than that he looks to be in one piece. 

“Keith!”

There’s a very faint, partially hidden, look on Keith’s face that he can’t quite read. When he talks, he sounds nasally from the tissues bunched up his nose. “Diro?”

“Hey. You okay?” He asks, kneeling in front of him and reaching up. Keith doesn’t flinch, just lets him turn his head to the side a bit to look at his cheekbone. 

“Fine,” he answers. “Dey called you?”

“Yeah,” he says, brows knitting. “Mom and Dad weren’t answering. It’s fine. I’ll sign you out after I talk to the principal.”

That makes Keith’s expression flitter to something darker, more…on edge. The nasally quality of his voice throws it off a bit, though. “Abou’ wad?”

“Just something,” he answers, purposefully ambiguous. Then he smiles, letting go of his jaw so Keith can turn his head as he pleases. “Don’t worry, I’ll hear you out first.”

Ruffling his hair gently, Shiro stands to head into the office, trying to ignore the heat in his stomach. He knocks on the door and waits for an answer before stepping inside and closing the door. It gives her time to turn forward and face him.

Shiro keeps his voice steady. “Mrs. Cane, before I sign Keith out, I wanted to ask if there’s any way that Keith could have heard what you said.”

“What I said?”

“About not caring who comes to pick him up.”

A look of confusion crosses her features, but no denial comes. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Mrs. Cane, I know what you meant,” he explains. “But the whole drive over here, all I could think about was that Keith might’ve heard you say that you didn’t care who came to get him. I know you meant me or our parents, but Keith…he’s been through a lot. I know he’s being suspended and he should’ve kept his fists to himself, but the fact is that he _needs_ people who care. I can’t help but think how many times he must’ve heard someone say something like that. That they didn’t care what happened to him so long as he wasn’t their problem anymore.”

In the course of his talking, he watches her face shift. The resoluteness that probably comes with defending her decisions to self-righteous parents fades in the wake of his soft disapproval. Instead it turns apologetic and genuine.

“I can almost assure you that Keith didn’t hear what I said,” she explains. “But that’s not an excuse. What I said was insensitive to Keith’s situation, and I’m sorry. I assure you that every adult here has Keith’s best interest in mind. However, that doesn’t excuse the fighting.”

Shiro’s shoulders unwind and he drops his head a little, nodding. “I’ll…I’ll talk to him about it.”

“Please do. I’d like not to see him in my office again for a repeat offense.”

He nods and leaves her office, stepping over to the counter to find the sign out sheet. Keith is already standing with the strap of his messenger bag hooked over his shoulder. The tissues are gone, but there’s a distinct crust of blood on his nostrils.

Shiro puts his hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go to your locker and get your things.”

“How bad is it?” His voice sounds less nasally now.

“Three days.”

Keith falls quiet and stays that way until they get to his locker. He’s stuffing things into his bag when Shiro speaks up again. “You remember what I said about not letting what people say get to you? That still stands.”

“It’s not like I do it on purpose! Okay?” The crunch of some paper under the book he shoves into his bag sounds almost violent. He doesn’t really yell, there’s just an insistence in his voice.

Shiro just waits. Eventually, Keith slams his locker door shut and drops his forehead against it. “It just…happens. It explodes, and the next thing I know I’m throwing a punch.”

Shiro can see a tension in his shoulders that spreads up his neck and grips his jaw. Keith’s eyes are squeezed shut, like every part of him is trying to contain something that Shiro can’t see. Something unfathomable, red, and angry.

“Okay.”

Keith’s eyes pop open and he straightens up, looking at him skeptically. “Okay…?”

He nods. “Okay.”

“No…heart-to-heart? No cheesy lecture? Nothing about not stooping to their level, or taking the high road? Being the better man?”

God, he’s so much like Adam sometimes. Shiro smiles.

“Nope.”

Shiro turns to head back towards the front office and out to the car. Keith is baffled enough not to follow, but then jogs after him, ducking forward a little as if he’s trying to get a decent look at him. Or possibly, Shiro thinks, he’s trying to determine if he’s been replaced by someone else.

“Really?”

“Really,” he answers, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. “The fact that you could list those things off means that you’ve heard them before and they haven’t worked. So why beat a dead horse?”

“I guess…”

As they get towards the door, Shiro puts his arm across Keith’s shoulders and gives the opposite one a squeezes. “Besides, this means we have three days to find something that _does_ work. Around my classes, of course, but you’ll have the time.”

“…because I’m grounded?”

Shiro smirks. “You are very, _very_ grounded.”


End file.
